Tag: Amtrak

Lake Shore Limited to Framingham

I woke up around seven o’clock. We were still in Pennsylvania. The sky was a dull gray. My roomette was on the north side of the train, and I kept hoping for a sight of Lake Erie. I finally thought I saw the lake in the distance.

A cloudy sky over a snow covered field, with a line of trees in the distance, and through a break in the trees perhaps a sight of a distant lake.
Near Freeport, Pennsylvania

It started snowing. The blowing snow made verything I saw out the window look faded. It was hard to tell the difference between the sky and the ground — both looked white.

A white sky overhead, trees in the distance partly obscured by snow, a snowy field in the foreground.
Snow near Buffalo, New York

We had a quarter of an hour layover at the Buffalo-Depew station, so I got out to stretch my legs. A few smokers got out and miserably puffed their cigarettes while the snow swirled around. The people getting on the train bent their heads down to keep snow out of their eyes.

People walking along a stationary train, which stretches into the distance.
Buffalo-Depew Station

The train passes quite near the lower end of Onondaga Lake. Through the falling snow, I saw a Bald Eagle sitting in tree near the water, and half a dozen Canada Geese swimming out in the lake.

Canada Geese in the distance, swimming on the lake.
Onondaga Lake, New York

The Lake Shore Limited seems to carry quite a few people in plain dress. Maybe they were Amish, but the Amish aren’t the only group that wears plain dress; there are Mennonite groups who wear plain dress, Hutterites, and still others. I asked one of the train crew about them. He said lots of Amish (as he called them) took the train, and sometimes they took over a whole car. I said I had heard at least one couple speking what sounded like Pennsylvania Dutch of Low German to me, but that wasn’t something he had noticed.

Couple wearing plain dress, Utica station (faces blurred to protect privacy)

When we got to Albany, I had to move to a different car. There’s a one hour layover in Albany. After I stowed my luggage in my new roomette, I stood outside the train, just to be outdoors. A young man was taking photographs with what looked like a film camera, and I asked him about it. He was shooting outdated Kodak Gold color film, which he processes and prints himself to get certain specific artistic effects. I was suitably impressed. He wandered off to take more photographs. I talked for a bit with the sleeping car attendant, who grew up in Dedham.

Then I fell into conversation with a man from Australia. He and his wife had taken the train from San Francisco, with a stop in Denver, and a two day layover in Chicago. He loved both cities, and was looking forward to seeing Boston, and then New York. It turned out that he was a retired air traffic controller, and so I asked him about the recent FAA shutdown of air traffic in the United States. He said that of course once you have a glitch like the FAA had, you have to shut down all air traffic. But he also said that problems like that do arise when you outsource certain functions.

We got back on the train a minute before it started up again. By now, it was starting to get dark. But the light lasted long enough for me to see the Berkshires off in the distance.

A river visible in the middle distance, and a low mountain visible through the snow in the far distance.
Near the Housatonic River, south of Hinsdale, Massachusetts, with mountains in the distance

The train arrived on time in Framingham. I got my car out of long-term parking just as it started pouring rain. I was thankful that it wasn’t cold enough to turn the rain to snow.

Now I’m home, and I still feel like there’s a train moving under me….

Lake Shore Limited — Hiawatha Service

I awakened in the middle of the night and looked out the window of the upper berth. Rain blurred the view. The GPS on my phone said we were in Buffalo, but I saw nothing distinctive.

A blurred photo of a dark night, with bright lights reflecting off rain-slicked pavement.
Buffalo, N.Y., at 12:45 a.m., from the train window.

I had gone to bed before nine o’clock, so it was no surprise when I awakened at half past six. I tried to doze, but I was awake. I washed my face and shaved, got dressed, and tried to read for a while. At last it started to grow light outside. I opened the curtains of the roomette to watch the world go by. We passed a brightly-painted, brightly-lit water tower in Bryan, Ohio.

The sky barely turning light, a brightly painted-and blurry sight of a water tower.
Bryan, Ohio

We mostly pass through farm fields, with a few patches of woodland, a few small towns, and a few areas of light industry.

Early morning, a grain tower appears through some trees.
Waterloo, Indiana

I saw no snow anywhere. I’ve taken the Lake Shore Limited several times before in January, and there is always snow on the ground at this time of year. But not this year. Global climate change is taking hold.

Elkhart, Indiana

Before I knew it, we were in Chicago, arriving at Union Station just before ten o’clock, ahead of schedule. I went up to the Great Hall, to see if it was as spectacular as I remembered it being. It was, and is. The sight was spoiled somewhat by the fact that Amtrak plays bad Muzak which sounds echo-y and terrible in that high space. I did my best to ignore the bad Muzak, and just enjoyed the light and space. It was a very peaceful place to spend a couple of hours while waiting for the connecting train to Milwaukee.

The Great Hall, Union Station, Chicago

Hiawatha Service, the service to Milwaukee, was delayed half and hour due to a computer glitch. At last we were on our way. I enjoyed looking down the streets of Chicago and trying to imagine who lived there.

Looking down a Chicago street from the window of the train.
Leavitt St., Near West Side, Chicago

I dozed off, and awakened again when we were in Wisconsin. It was a short ride, just under 90 minutes. The downtown Milwaukee train station was nothing special — it looked like a bus terminal, and actually it was a bus terminal as well as a train station.

Downtown Milwaukee intermodal station, passngers waiting to board the southbound Hiawatha Service (faces blurred to protect privacy).

Carol and her dad were waiting to pick me up outside the station. Supposedly there’s a move to extend train service all the way up the coast of Lake Michigan to Green Bay. That would have saved Carol an hour and a half drive down to pick me up.

While my trip took much longer than the two hour flight from Boston to Milwaukee, my carbon footprint was much, much smaller. And I enjoyed it more, because instead of being treated like animated cargo (that’s how TSA and the airlines treat you), I was treated like an actual human being.

Lake Shore Limited

I boarded the Lake Shore Limited at the Framingham station. I would have taken the commuter rail from Cohasset to South Station, except I have a complicated parking situation, and had to leave my car in overnight parking.

The section of the Lake Shore Limited that runs from Boston to Albany is a small consist: one sleeper car, a club car, two coaches, all pulled by one locomotive. I had no trouble finding the correct car to board.

I quickly settled in, and then I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew we were in Worcester. The sun had gone away, leaving a harsh gray sky. I was glad to be inside my nice warm roomette.

View from train window showing freight cars on another track.
CSX intermodal yard, Worcester

I dozed off again, and awakened as we slowed down to enter Springfield. We passed a lonely-looking tent encampment in some trees next to the tracks. We stopped briefly at the Springfield station, where a few people got on and more seemed to get off the train.

View from the train window showing people walking along damp pavement towards a ramp.
Springfield station

We crossed the Connecticut River….

Connecticut River crossing

…and began to climb into the hills of western Massachusetts. We passed an old paper manufacturing plant.

Old Strahmore paper plant, Russell, Massachusetts

The route ran along the Westfield River for an hour or so. At times the train ran right next to the river, and then the river would wind away into the woods and disappear. Steep hills surrounded us.

Westfield River, Montgomery, Massachusetts

By the time we go into the Berkshires, it was dusk. We wound through the hills as night set in.

Albany Station platforms; the Boston section of the Lake Shore Limited is on the right (on the other side of the stairwell); Empire service is just leaving the station in the center

At Albany, we had a one hour layover while we were connected with the New York City section of the Lake Shore Limited. I walked up to the station, mostly to stretch my legs, and bought a copy of the Financial Times. Now I’m waiting for dinner, and before you know it I’ll be bedded down in the upper berth sound asleep.